Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 2005 (IPS) — When U.S. President George W. Bush meets Asian leaders on Friday and Saturday, he will discuss the threats of avian flu, terrorism and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, but stalled global trade talks are likely to take centre-stage.

U.S. officials say they will urge Asian countries meeting for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit Nov. 18-19 to help unlock the long-running World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, called the Doha round because they were kick-started in the Qatari capital in 2001.

“Frankly, I am sometimes concerned that the nations of Asia are allowing a handful of other nations, including the United States, the EU, Brazil and others, to take a lead role in these multilateral talks,” said U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Portman in a recent press conference. “[This] is not as productive as those countries taking a more active role themselves.”

The 21-member APEC forum will be held in Busan, South Korea amid concern in the United States, which is spearheading efforts toward global trade liberalisation, that the upcoming WTO talks in Hong Kong in December may collapse. A key stumbling block has been the reluctance of developing nations, some of them in Asia, to further open up their markets until industrialised nations make similar concessions and drop the huge subsidies to their farmers.

Some APEC members have expressed frustration with farm subsidies in the United States and the European Union, but have not put forth their own proposal or shown any willingness to budge on the areas Washington covets the most – trade in goods and services, and intellectual property rights.

The tone in Washington is that the United States, and the international community, should not be bogged down over the farm subsidies issue and should move on to other areas like manufacturing and services. However, this position is likely to be seen as self-serving and will continue to disappoint key countries like India, China and Brazil.

These three countries, along with South Africa, Egypt and other developing nations, brought the last global trade meeting in Cancun, Mexico in 2003 to a standstill when they demanded a farm subsidies compromise from the United states, Japan and the European Union first. Rich nations refused to act.

Analysts here say that Bush is likely to throw the ball back into the court of the Asians during this week’s meetings by asking them to ease their own tariffs and other trade barriers.

“You won’t get that progress unless other countries are also willing to make clear they are willing to bring down the tariffs and barriers with respect to manufacturing goods and services,” Stephen Hadley, the U.S. national security advisor, told reporters on Tuesday aboard Air Force One. “So it’s one of those things that for it to work, everybody is going to have to kick in.”

WTO members are supposed reach agreement on a comprehensive draft trade deal to be finalised at the Dec. 13-18 conference in Hong-Kong.

“But what we would like to, and the president wants to do, is to make it clear to countries that there is a real opportunity in Hong Kong in December, and he’s going to encourage the countries to make the tough decisions that will allow us to take the most of that opportunity,” Hadley said ahead of the Asia trip.

This is no easy mission, particularly since Bush’s call to break down trade barriers worldwide was rejected by most Latin American leaders during the Summit of the Americas earlier this month. Bush had wanted to finalise the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, a deal that would join 34 countries in a common market in the Western hemisphere.

Many Latin American countries say U.S.-driven economic and trade prescriptions have led to slow growth, rising inequality and further impoverishment of their populations.

“The (Asia) trip also provides an opportunity for the Bush administration to overcome its bad press from the Summit of the Americas earlier this month in Argentina, where the Bush administration’s agenda for the Free Trade Area of the Americas was soundly rejected,” said John Gershman of the New Mexico-based International Relations Centre.

If this “bad press” is a concern for the administration’s trade agenda, APEC could indeed represent a rescue of the Doha talks. After all, APEC’s members represent more than one-third of the world’s population, 60 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, and nearly half of global trade. It could be a real win for free trade proponents if the U.S. president can get them on board for the Doha round.

“Strong statements from the APEC forum can have a major impact,” agreed Balbina Y. Hwang, a policy analyst at the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

But with free trade falling out of favour in a number of countries and the persistent difficulties surrounding the Doha talks, “statements” may be the best that the administration may get in Asia.

One reason is the growing sense in Asia that the U.S. goes to such meetings with its own priorities and agenda, and tries to impose them on other parties with little regard for those countries’ own concerns.

“A U.S. tendency to use regional consultations principally as an occasion for pressing other participants on U.S. priorities rather than listening carefully to their concerns will surely reinforce a growing desire of Asians to meet on key issues – particularly economic matters – without the U.S. at the table,” predicted the Asia Foundation in a report released earlier this week ahead of the meetings.

Developing countries are also emboldened by strong backing from civil society groups around the world, many of which have taken to the streets denouncing the Bush administration’s trade agenda at similar summits.

“The trade proposals on the table are seriously bad news for poor people and the environment,” said Ronnie Hall of Friends of the Earth International. “Developing countries are right to stand their ground. No deal is definitely better than a bad deal.”